More than 3,000 Burmese flee to Thailand after army bombings

More than 3,000 Burmese have fled to Thailand after junta-controlled army bombing over the weekend in several areas of Karen state in the southeast of the country caused at least 10,000 villagers to flee into the jungle.

The Karen women's organisation said in a statement on Monday that about 10,000 people have fled into the jungle to hide, while about 3,000 have crossed the border into Thailand for fear of shelling in the Karen guerrilla-controlled area.

According to the Karen support network, two Burmese army planes dropped nine bombs and fired from the air with automatic weapons on Saturday night, killing at least three people.

The military resumed bombing the next morning in the same region, where three fighter jets attacked three villages in the afternoon, causing villagers to flee en masse to the jungle and the border with neighbouring Burma.

The organisation does not know at this stage the exact number of deaths caused by these air strikes.

For its part, the Committee of Representatives of the Union Assembly (CRPH), the self-styled legitimate government made up of elected officials, denounced after the bombings that the "terrorist" military junta led by Min Aung Hlaing "is committing atrocities all over the country and is now even using aeroplanes".

The Nationalities Committee for the General Strike, one of the main groups opposing the junta, called in an open letter for ethnic armed groups to "collectively protect the people, youth, women, children and the elderly" who oppose the military regime imposed after the February 1 coup d'état.

Meanwhile, the Association of Parliamentarians of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) called in a statement for the Thai authorities to guarantee asylum for victims who have crossed the border and to provide them with international protection.

These calls follow the bloodiest weekend since the military uprising, with more than 100 people killed in the crackdown on protests, bringing the military junta's death toll since the coup to 459, according to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP) in Burma.

The Burmese military justifies the coup on the grounds of alleged fraud in last November's elections, although they were declared legitimate by international observers.